Liverpool owners didn’t realise how bad the squad were when they bought the club

Lucas Leiva is one of the few players still at the club from when FSG took over (Picture: Getty Images)

It has been revealed that Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group didn’t realise how bad the playing squad was when they bought the club in 2010.

This has been unearthed during a court case involving former Reds owner George Gillett, who still owes money on the loans he took out to finance buying the Merseyside outfit.

FSG’s one-time general counsel Edward Weiss spoke in court, telling all about FSG’s due diligence, reported the Liverpool Echo.

‘I think we underestimated that,’ said Weiss when asked how much investment they thought the club would need.

‘We ended up losing quite a bit of money in our first couple of years and we had to make even more considerable investment in the playing squad than we had estimated as we went through the bidding process.’

He went on to add: ‘I mean, we obviously did some due diligence on the playing squad during this process before we closed on the transaction in the middle of October of 2010.

‘What we came to know was that the playing squad was poor. We were sitting at the time we closed on the transaction for the club in 17th place is my recollection which is one spot above the relegation line.

‘And while we had a few top players like Steven Gerrard, other players like Fernando Torres and Pepe Reina were probably beyond their primes, and Javier Mascherano was not even on the team.’